


Corpses Can't Laugh

by zenonaa



Category: Dangan Ronpa
Genre: Execution, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-08
Updated: 2015-03-08
Packaged: 2018-03-16 23:37:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3506831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenonaa/pseuds/zenonaa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>... so he just slumped forward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Corpses Can't Laugh

The base of the trashcan banged into the conveyor belt, rattling as it wobbled, but ultimately did not overbalance. Byakuya Togami wiggled, as undignified as wiggling was, though in the end, wiggling achieved nothing. He remained wedged inside the trashcan with his upper body protruding and his lower legs dangling outside of it. Confined to the metal receptacle, he could only inspect the change of scenery as the conveyor belt chugged him along.

Gone were the checkered blues, greens and pinks that Byakuya remembered seeing before that bear charged at him, pushing him into a trashcan that he knew hadn’t been there a minute ago. Now was red, orange and yellow, and cardboard flames bobbed up and down all around. The area glowed with hot hues and reeked of oil and craning his neck, peering below the conveyor belt, he saw bear silhouettes torture cardboard cutouts shaped like humans. Whipping. Beheading. Stabbing. Quite uninspired, really. Cheaply produced too.

Other trashcans sat upon the conveyor belt, some ahead of the one that Byakuya occupied and the rest following behind in an orderly line. Crash test dummies nestled in each of them, crammed inside like Byakuya, all yellow, all the same, with painted glares and moulded sneers and necks collared with a green crosstie.

Byakuya tilted his head back and stared up at the darkness that festered where a ceiling might have been. The conveyor belt spluttered to a stop and the trashcan - Byakuya refused to acknowledge it as ‘his’ trashcan - teetered but again did not topple over. He dragged his gaze to the side and met the beetle eye of Monobear, who stood on a theater balcony and was dressed in a white blouse and a pleated skirt held up with suspenders.

Monobear flicked his palm. A stone flew up, spun, and landed back in his palm. This happened five times. Byakuya counted, watching every occurrence.

The sixth throw was aimed at the trashcan and the stone struck it with a clang. More stones rapped against it, Monobear’s arms whirling like watermills. Monobear broadened his bullseye and soon smashed stones into Byakuya, ripping his trousers. Tearing his skin. Shattering his glasses. Gnawing at his regality. Byakuya rocked the trashcan, rocked it until it capsized and he fell. He fell.

He fell into snow.

Blood splattered.

He was alone.

Like an animal, he crawled forward on all fours.

Snow crunched.

Cold bit his fingers.

On all fours, he crawled forward, like an animal.

He was alone.

Byakuya lifted his chin. Something in his chest cracked.

Two figures leered down at him. A pair of Monobears, the one on the balcony and a different, larger one, stood several feet away, separated from Byakuya by a stretch of snow. Untouched snow. Pure snow.

Cold bit his fingers.

Snow crunched as the smaller Monobear shuffled closer and Byakuya flinched, and oh how that stained his throat bitter, but no stone was thrown. Just a paw that the Monobear extended forward, proffering a coin, and Byakuya reached out a trembling arm to take it.

The larger Monobear swatted the coin out of the other Monobear’s paw and wrenched him back, hauling him away from the hobo in the snow.

Byakuya smiled and would have laughed but corpses can’t laugh so he just slumped forward.

He gasped himself awake.

His hand twitched, tangled in dark, but a tangible dark that fitted between his fingers. As he waited for his breathing to return to normal, body uncomfortably hot, uncomfortably sweaty, he focused on the feel of Touko’s hair before drifting into a dreamless sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> (❛=⊡⌓⊡)❥.Θ-)༽ ♡


End file.
